Anne, Anne, Amber, Axel, Alex, Arko, Arne and Anouk will be studying Psychology & Technology, and for this Intro they are all in one group with Nanouk. It is no coincidence that all their names, bar one, start with A, says Intro buddy Eva Boots. She suspects the Intro Committee at study association Intermate of purposely making the name list of each Intro group as tricky as possible. What’s more, she knows from personal experience last year when she herself as was on the Intro Committee that these things happen.

One thing that is different from last year is this: “Outside the offline program offered by TU/e we are not allowed to meet up whenever we want to. We have read in the conditions that this rule applies until midnight on Monday August 31st.” The A-Units will be sticking to this rule, especially after Wednesday when all the Intro buddies were given an extra warning by the Intermate Intro Committee. “On Tuesday a group had a drink together and that was not what was agreed. In response, we were told once more that we have to be alert and listen to the rules. We are.” The A-Units are keen to avoid both COVID-19 and hassle.

“The offline days were certainly fun,” says Eva. Together with fellow mom Jane Deijnen, she gave her ‘kids’ free rein to do whatever they wanted at the Campus Market. “A group of eleven is too big to make a joint decision about what you are going to do. What’s more, you’re standing so far apart from each other that it is hard to catch what is being said. Anyone who found it a bit nerve-wracking had the option of staying with us. I noticed that they broke up into smaller groups at that point.”

Hectic

The online activities held less appeal for Eva. “I thought Wednesday was really chaotic. Intermate brought all the Intro-goers together and held an interactive podcast in MS Teams. The board members presented themselves and asked quiz questions. They made it really fun, but as a mom I had a hard time trying to work out how my eleven were doing. I was trying to juggle paying attention to the program and seeing whether everyone was joining in.”

The end of this Intro will be marked today, online. “We’ll stick around after the official program and play a game together, maybe Jackbox,” says Eva. “And then we’ll all have to wave goodbye. See you in September! I’m not expecting anything very exciting then, but to my mind you really need to come together in person to mark the end of a special period like Intro.”